Imagacillin

Brace yourselves this could be a long one. Next on the agenda for a shopping day at the outlet mall. Sarah, Amy, our friend Ann Hahn, Lukas and I all headed out to shop till we dropped. Actually we almost did. Our first stop was the Carter outlet. I couldn't resist putting him in this really cute hat!! Believe it or not I didn't buy it!!! It was a warm day and Lukas was having a little tummy ache. Our friend Ann took him for a little stroll while we kept shopping. We went looking for them and we found Ann, with a little panic in her eyes, because Lukas had spit up. I am not sure that Ann was amused. Sorry Ann I thought it was too funny!!!

He did however score a pair of crocs!!!

The next day was really rainy. We all headed into Dahlanaga for registration, and packet pick-up. After a lunch at Moe's, (yum) half the group headed back to the trailer for some bike prep. Sarah, Amy, Lukas and I headed to Cleveland to...........Cabbage Patch world. Who knew we were so close all these times.

In some ways it was a weird experience. They are a REAL doll hospital. All the "babies" are born to the magic cabbage and the doctors and nurses are there to help. They get a shot of Imagicillin, and the cabbage is helped with an Eazyotomy!!!! Yep, I kid you not Then they are taken to the nursery weighed, measured, and diapered!!!! Then they are for sale.

Here they are lined up in one of the nurseries!!

And like it or not, Lukas has his own new cabbage patch. We adopted him and is name is Elliott Lukas.

Back at the trailer Ann and Tom joined us for dinner on a rainy night. Here Ann is channeling her inner mommy!!!

I will apologize in advance for the next picture. Jesse has never been exactly NORMAL!!!!! Very hard to explain why he is doing this but he was obsessed with a certain subject this night. Nuff said on my part......the rest shall have to go unsaid!!!

Sunday morning was ride day. At 5:30 am it started to rain, but by the start it had stopped. The non-riders headed up the mountain to a prime viewing spot. Here you can see Lukas is all set up for some serious cheering.

First a little breakfast with the rest of the cheering squad.

This is the start of the riders coming through. We are about three fourths of the way up on the first big climb. There are 5 more climbs after this. 104 plus something total miles and a LOT of climbing is involved. Unless you have been here it is surprising how tough this ride is. Lukas was cheering everyone on. It was really cute he would wave and screech. A lot of the riders would thank him and wave. Tom said you could hear him up and down the mountain, and it brought a smile to his face and a chuckle. At the end of the ride Amy had someone come over and ask her if it was her son that was cheering on the mountian and how cute it was.

Jesse made a quick stop to say hello and thank the cheering squad.

Dave stopped by to say hello. Then off to climb some more!!!

Ann did the 34 mile valley ride and was very proud of her accomplishment. We were all happy for her and told her next year it would be the 50 mile, 3 gap.

Tom finished the 100 miles and was ready for a few minutes off the bike. Way to go Tom.

Jesse finished strong and the family was there to welcome him in. We are all proud of the accomplishment. He had hoped for a better time but given that he has had other obligations this year and not too much time on the bike I think he did great just to finish.

Lukas and grandpa after he finished. The plan had been to do the 100 miler but he decided the 50 was good this year. He enjoys the riding down here so much that he sort of overrode the days before. Next time he won't be doing 3 gaps, 3 days in a row just before the big one!!! Right???

In an earlier blog Lukas mentioned that he is standing on his own now. He loved it in the trailer in his pack-n-play. He would stand, reach for the other side, walk around, an when he fell he would giggle. He loves his new found skill. Tom and Ann commented that his only problem is that he is NOT HAPPY enough!!! Here he is practicing at the Lumkin county high school while he waited for dad to finish.

The next morning it was up and at em. Jesse and Amy and Lukas got packed and took off a few minutes before we did. We left Georgia and got back home to our own beds at about 1:30. From the time we left we were battling a strong wind. Dave did all the driving and it was a chore. Jesse and Amy had a few detours and stopped to let Lukas stretch his legs, but made good time also. I guess at one stop they met a little girl named Victoria. She loved Lukas and wanted to stand with them and hold his hand, Jesse said she was Kentucky's 6 year old social butterfly. Lukas likes to chew on Amy's little pocketbook and when Victoria left she said in her best southern accent..."good luck to you chewing on you mommy's purse!"

Sarah took over my favorite traveling spot.

We all had a great time. The trailer worked out well for the most part. We had a mix of great weather and some really rainy days. I love spending time with all these wonderful people. It was great to be together. In closing I wanted to include this picture of my sweet little man's first tooth. It was so hard to say goodbye to them all, and I look forward to doing it again soon.

Lukas also learned to to wave goodbye and hello and he loves it. He waved goodbye and hello wherever we went. He waved at the bikers as they went by. And even though I am not including a picture of it he is waving goodbye to you all also!!!!

Just a quick hello. G-ma mentioned that I needed to explain about the last blog. She said something about all of the text not showing up. So here I am to try and straighten it out for her.

I should explain that on the way down I did not do the driving. I left that up to mom and dad although I was there to offer some pointers!! I got to go horseback riding at the Wally World with the fam. I got a tooth just before coming down and then I have been working on the other on this week, that is to explain the sucked in lip on a lot of my pics. Also the video that g=ma included was

me learning to stand on my own. I had been trying and finally I was able to do it. Everyone said I did spectacular . Just so you know since then I had figured out how to maneuver my way around the pack n play. I think that about catches me up for now. I will blog again and tell you about the awesome trip I took and about g-pa and daddy's bike ride.

Thanks to Lukas for clearing that up. I wanted to add that the last pic was of our trailer. Please note that the ENTIRE middles section of the campground is EMPTY and of course we come back from our trip to Helen and look who moved in with us...........what there was NO where else to park!!!!!

Oh and Aunt Sarah did this to my hair, Like it??

My trip to Georgia, by Lukas Ward

So, dad and g-pa are doing a 100 mile ride in Georgia this weekend so we headed down to meet gandg at the campground. Dad let me do some of the driving........well maybe not, but I did put some time in at the steering wheel during one of our stops!!

Not long after our arrival G=pa walked me down to see the river. Man is was really rockin and rollin from all the rain they have had down this way.

G-ma and g-pa have the add a-room all set up for me and here he is showing me the whole set up. It is working out really well, except they still have a little weather sealing to do because when it rained some things got a little wet.Not me though!!! Don't worry!!!

Trip

Hello everyone!!! I had plans for a nice long blog about my trip to Georgia and meeting up with GandG but!!!! Grandma was going to load the pictures for me and dad got to playing on the computer........nuff said!!! Grandma promised she would do it later but I thought I would at least say a hello!!!

On the way down we did stop for a little dinner..........

I'll fill you in on the rest later!!! BYE for now!

Georgia on our minds

So this morning we woke and after a long discussion on what to do and a phone call to the Lumpkin Co. Chamber of commerce we headed for Georgia. We were watching all the news out of Atlanta couldn't believe all the weather and flooding. When I called they almost laughed at me for asking if they were under water anywhere and if the roads were all clear. Anyways as you can see we made it .

On the way there we passed this in the other side of the road. Don't see that very often anymore!!! Keep em rolling!!!

As we got closer to Chattanooga we were hearing that there were some roads closed. We noted out the window a Sears store underwater. The highway had some slowdowns but we made it through no problems.

Last year when we came through here the majority of this was just rocks. They were in the middle of a drought. With the 20 inches of rain they got over the last week it sure looked different. It is the Ocoee reservoir, and this is the Olympics kayak course.

Long day in the car and we finally made it to the campground. It turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. This is the the river running behind the trailer.

Home sweet home for the next 6 days. Add-a-room not up yet and Jesse, Amy and Lukas are on their way. We look forward to all being together soon.

OK, I will apologize for this in advance. The last 2 blogs Dave (for some reason) has been upset that I have not included this shot of him?????? I am pretty sure that something is REALLY wrong with him!!! So dear here it is, you in all your GLORY!!!!!!

WOW!!!!!! I may have nightmares!

See ya tomorrow.

Kentucky Day 2

OK, so first Dave was upset that I didn't include this picture in the blog yesterday. One look at the way I appear in it and you all should know WHY!! But, in order to keep him happy I will include it today with the explanation that it was really humid in that cave, I need a perm (Brenda!!), and it is a horrible angle!!!! This is what happened after we came out of the cave and into the hot weather.

This morning this is what we woke up to. It rained really hard a couple of times during the night also. I called the campground we are going to in Georgia to see if they were underwater, there was a long silence, and then she said "UMMM"........she then said they had to move 2 trailers but that the rest were fine for now!!!! We shall see as we are heading out tomorrow morning.

Thought you would like to see the rig with the add-a-room up and ready to roll.

Dave needed to put some real time in on the bike, come rain or shine!!! He headed out between rain drops. Later when he returned he said he was chased by 4 dogs. He was able to use his bike to keep them away until the owner finally came out an called in the dogs. Scary!!

Well, not too much more to tell from this end. Hopefully, we will make our next destination with no problems and the campground will be above water!!!!!! Jesse , Amy and Lukas will be heading down tomorrow and we hope they will have great and safe trip. The big news on that front is that Lukas has his first tooth!!! What a big boy and I can't wait to be able to share pictures.

Our ole' Kentucky home

Dave, Sarah and I are in Kentucky. So far I am in a better mood than the last time we traveled together!! I did have to threaten them to "GO WISCONSIN" on them at one time. But, for now things are going well!! The skyline in Louisville.

We are staying in Cave City at the Jellystone Park, (Sandy I told them we found out about this place from you and they are charging me double!!!) Dave and I have always loved Yogi! or is it Boo Boo. When we first got here it started to POUR. Of course when you get set up it stops.

Sarah loves the bear too!!!

Home Sweet Home!!!

So today we headed off to Mammoth Cave to see what we could see!! Things started off well!!! Kath, our guide gave us a warning speech before entering the cave. I listened to every word and still went in!!

At the mouth of the cave it was very hot an humid. They have you turn a corner and the cool air from the cave hits you.......ahhhh this won't be bad!! Then you see this!!! OK did Kath talk about this??

We got into the cave and the only part that Sarah wasn't too sure about was when she felt the grate over the 105ft. drop flex a little........come on Sar ya wimp!!

Now we were really getting into the bowels of this beast!! It was getting a little lower as we went farther in......and yes, Kath did tell us about this!!

Yep, keep going....at this point we were singing the Flo-rida song.....LOW LOW LOW LOW LOW........Nice caboose Dave!!

Then is got a little narrow!!

Seriously, is this politically correct?!?!?

But, the fat girl made it with nary a scratch. I only had to decide which way to face as we went through here. Some areas it was better to turn away from the rocks to get the front through!!! Did you catch my drift??? Sarah mentioned that it was too bad we didn' t have a ace bandage for a little binding!!!!

Then as if I had not been tortured enough in 2 hours there was this!!! The only way out. I made it out and when we did we wished we were back in the cave where it was 54 degrees. It was a hot and humid afternoon!!

Back to the campground after a little drive and a stop at a very interesting little country store!! We decided to try out the new add-a-room on the trailer. Dave still had a little install work to do but it looks great and makes for a lot more area for us all.

See, Sarah is enjoying it already!!

One last entry......pretty flowers but is that a moth or a butterfly???? If it is a moth then I am sooooooooooooooooo grossed out and will never take a picture like this again!!!

PLEASE tell me it is NOT a MOTH!!!!!!!!!!

Stay tuned for more....